The Ghost

by Monica McCarty

  Much like her own mother, Joan thought sadly. But from what Alex said, his parents had had a good marriage.

  “Why?” Alex asked. “You don’t think . . . ?” He glanced down at the couple with mild horror on his face.

  She laughed. “It took me a while to realize my mother had her own life to live, too. But I’m glad she’s happy.”

  He considered her words for a moment. “I suppose Murray is a hell of a lot better than MacRuairi.”

  “Alex!” She swatted at him and scowled. “He’ll hear you, and you promised to try.”

  “I will. But what about him? He stood up in the wedding ceremony—right when the priest called for objections, damn it! Bloody bastard!”

  Joan bit her lip, trying not to laugh. “He didn’t end up saying anything.”

  “Only because you shot him a look of death.”

  She feigned affront. “I did no such thing, and I don’t have a look of death.”

  He shivered, ignoring her protests. “I just hope you never look at me like that.”

  “Try to get along with Lachlan, and you won’t give me a reason.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  She grinned. “Don’t whinge, my love, it isn’t knightly. And besides, my mother will help. She has always liked you.”

  “I would say she had impeccable taste if it wasn’t for . . .” He looked down the table at MacRuairi, who was still shooting daggers at him.

  “Alex!”

  “All right, all right. I made a vow—albeit under duress.”

  She blinked up at him innocently. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Tears and pitiful looks won’t work all the time, sweetheart.”

  She tried not to smile. But they had this time. She knew she had to do something drastic or the two men might have come to blows during her wedding ceremony. Alex had backed off, but only after she’d pleaded—tearfully—with him to not let it ruin their day.

  “The ceremony was beautiful,” she said. Even with Lachlan’s not-so-timely interruption.

  He reached over to sweep a tendril of hair behind her ear, but she knew it was only an excuse to let his fingers brush her cheek. “You are beautiful. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  She blushed at the compliment—and the obvious sincerity with which it had been given. “Well, I suppose I look a good sight better than I did this morning. Thanks to your mother.”

  His face darkened. “God, Joan, I am so sorry. If I hadn’t been so damned stubborn—”

  “It wouldn’t have changed what happened to me. You told me yourself what Margaret said.”

  They’d been watching Joan for a while. In a fit of pique after Alex’s threat to claim her inheritance, Alice had voiced her “suspicions” (which ironically weren’t real suspicions—she had no idea Joan was really the spy) to her husband, who had in turn confided in Despenser. But the moment Sir Adam had accidentally confirmed her identity, Joan’s chance to leave was gone. Nothing Alex could have done could have changed that. Ashamed of her part in Joan’s capture, Alice had told Margaret that Joan had left. Fortunately, Margaret hadn’t believed it. Eventually Margaret had worn Alice down, learned that Joan was in the pit prison, and sent a note to John Ross. But Alice had redeemed herself somewhat. It was she who’d put the note in her brooch, and she who’d kept the soldiers busy under false pretenses and given the keys to Margaret to let Joan’s rescuers in and out.

  “My fate was sealed before you left,” Joan told him. “The only thing that would have changed was that we would still be fighting this war.”

  He shook his head. “Christ, you sound like Raider.”

  She didn’t miss the unconscious use of Boyd’s war name. “He is obviously a very smart man.” Her teasing smile softened. “But none of what happened was your fault, Alex. We both made mistakes. I was stubborn, too. I thought I was too good to get caught.” She smiled. “I also thought one man couldn’t make a difference and change the war. But I was wrong. Very wrong.” She was so incredibly proud of him. “Please, don’t let what happened cast a pall over this day.”

  He nodded, but she knew better than to think it was over. She almost pitied the man who’d done this to her, knowing that Alex would not let it go unanswered.

  She looked down the table of her fellow Guardsmen and suspected he wouldn’t be alone. “I’m glad they stayed,” she said.

  “They did it for you.”

  “I think maybe not just for me?” She’d seen him talking to the others after the ceremony, and it was clear something had changed.

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  A swell of happiness rose inside her. She knew what that shrug meant. If Alex wasn’t back with the Highland Guard now, he would be soon. She had faith in him.

  She didn’t think it was possible to be any happier.

  She was wrong. An embarrassingly few hours later—Alex had utterly ignored their duties as hosts and left the feast well before it was over—she was lying in her husband’s arms more content (and sated) than surely any person had a right to be.

  Although maybe she’d earned it. Maybe all the difficulties, hardships, and disappointments in her life had brought her to this point. Maybe she wouldn’t be experiencing this kind of joy if she hadn’t experienced the alternative.

  Alex caressed the naked skin of her shoulder while pressing his mouth to her hair. “What are you thinking about?”

  She propped up her chin on the back of the hand she had planted on his chest to look up at him. Her golden knight. The man who’d renewed her faith in honorable men. It was a heavy mantle of expectation to wear, but she knew he was up to the task. “You. Me. The future. That I’ve never been so happy in all my life.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?” she repeated, surprised by his tone. “You sound disappointed.”

  He grinned rather devilishly for someone who was supposed to be a paragon of honor. “I was rather hoping you were thinking about ways to make me break more vows. That last one was rather . . . effective.”

  “Well, when I bent down to examine that ‘scratch’ you weren’t going to tell me about”—Lachlan had some explaining to do for that!—“it seemed a good place to start.”

  “Oh, it was. And nearly a good place to end a few minutes later.”

  She grinned. “I guess that means I was doing it right?”

  “Sweetheart, with your mouth on me like that there is nothing you could do that wasn’t right.”

  “That’s good, because I had an idea when you were behind me in the saddle.”

  Alex swore, and she looked up at him and frowned. “What was that for?”

  “For what you are about to do to my stamina. This isn’t going to last long.”

  But he was wrong in that. It would last forever.

  EPILOGUE

  Berwick Castle, Berwick-upon-Tweed, July 17, 1328

  THE SPIDER HAD spun her web.

  Robert the Bruce had lived to see the day that at times—too many times—he feared would never come. Twenty-two years ago, when things had seemed their darkest, he’d learned an important lesson in perseverance from a spider in a cave to never give up. Today that lesson had paid off.

  As Bruce listened to his four-year-old son and heir, David, repeat the vows that would bind him to his seven-year-old bride, Joan of the Tower, Edward II’s youngest daughter, he knew that his long struggle was over. The die that had been cast twenty-three years ago at Lochmaben Castle had finally stopped rolling.

  He’d won. He’d won.

  “We did it, my friend,” he said to himself, thinking of the young churchman who’d met with him that late August day in 1305 to bring him the news of William Wallace’s death. But William Lamberton, the Bishop of St. Andrews, Bruce’s longtime friend and supporter, wasn’t here to see it. He’d died two months ago—eighteen days before the treaty with England had been signed. The treaty that after nearly three decades of warfare had put in writing what Bruce’s vict
ory at Bannock Burn fourteen years earlier had established: Robert the Bruce was king and Scotland was a free and sovereign nation. This marriage between the Scot Prince and English Princess was only an added jewel on his crown.

  But it was a crown that had come at such a cost. Too high a cost, perhaps. As the king sat in the chapel, surrounded by his friends, family, and most loyal followers, he could see the ghosts of those who had given their lives to see this day. Great patriots like William Wallace, Simon Fraser, Andrew Murray, Christopher Seton, and the Earl of Atholl; loyal supporters like Lamberton, William “Templar” Gordon, and Neil Campbell; and the most painful of all, four of his brothers—Edward had died a few years after Bannock Burn in Ireland—two sisters, a daughter released from captivity only to die a year later, and his queen, who’d survived her long imprisonment to give him three children, dying just last year.

  He could even see the faces of the enemies he’d vanquished—John “The Red” Comyn, whose fatal stabbing had launched Bruce’s bid for the crown, Edward I of England, the self-proclaimed Hammer of the Scots who’d nearly destroyed him, and Edward II of England, the king against whom he’d won his great victory, but whose favoritism toward Sir Hugh Despenser had eventually led to his downfall and murder last year—reportedly by a hot poker up his arse—on the order of his queen and her lover, Roger Mortimer.

  So many lives lost, including—soon—his own. Aye, the veil between life and death was merely a shadow now, for the Bruce was dying. And everyone knew it.

  One by one during the wedding feast, his friends, family, and loyal supporters came to pay their respects. His two lieutenants led the way—James “the Black” Douglas, who’d brokered this treaty with the English with his wife, Joanna, and Thomas Randolph, Bruce’s nephew and the man he had named protector for his young son and heir, with his wife, Isabel. His kingdom was in good hands with the two men who had helped him win it.

  But even before Randolph and Douglas there were the fabled warriors of the illustrious Highland Guard. Men whom he and Lamberton had handpicked to form a secret army before he made his bid for the crown. That it worked had surprised him. How well it had worked he could never have imagined.

  They’d been through so much together. These men better than any others knew how much this moment meant—and how much it had cost him.

  There was Tor “Chief” MacLeod, the fearsome leader of the Guard who had rarely left the king’s side during his most perilous hours, and his wife, Christina, who’d once saved Bruce’s life by alerting him to a plot by Comyn.

  There was Erik “Hawk” MacSorley, the always-jesting seafarer whose skill at evading the English navy had enabled Bruce to flee Scotland and live to fight another day, and his wife, Ellie—Bruce’s sister-in-law—who kept the half-Viking, half-Gael in line.

  There was Arthur “Ranger” Campbell, the scout with an eerie ability to sense things whose information had enabled Bruce to win a great victory against the MacDougalls, and his wife, Anna—the daughter of the MacDougalls—who had been forced to break with her family to save the man she loved.

  The next man in line was Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi, the onetime ruthless mercenary turned loyal supporter, and his wife, Bella, who had spent two years in a cage for her part in putting a crown upon Bruce’s head.

  Behind them was Magnus “Saint” MacKay, the do-anything Highlander and the toughest man Bruce knew, and his wife, Helen “Angel” Sutherland, the healer of the Guard, who had proved her own toughness when she had led Bruce through the Highlands after being attacked by a team of assassins.

  Next was Helen’s brother, Kenneth “Ice” Sutherland, the onetime spy who’d brought Bruce key information about the English campaign. He’s also brought the young Earl of Atholl back into the Scottish fold when he’d married his mother (and Bruce’s former sister-in-law), Mary of Mar.

  Mary’s twin sister, Janet, followed. She was one of Bruce’s best couriers, passing information while pretending to be a nun, when she crossed paths with the greatest tracker in Scotland, Ewen “Hunter” Lamont. Together they’d warned Bruce of an English plot to take him captive at an English parley.

  Narrow escapes. He’d had so many of them.

  Like Wallace before him, Robbie “Raider” Boyd had every reason to hate the English. He’d served as Bruce’s enforcer, taming the wild Borders. But he’d met his surprising match in the “Fair Rosalin,” the beautiful (and very English) sister of his worst enemy.

  Bruce’s own daughter came next. Cate, the natural daughter he thought he’d lost, but who had been “found” by Gregor “Arrow” MacGregor. MacGregor’s near-perfect aim with a bow had come in handy more than once. Although Bruce couldn’t help teasing him about being back at the scene of his biggest failure: when they’d lost the chance to take Berwick Castle because MacGregor hesitated to shoot a dog.

  Bruce’s kinsman Eoin “Striker” MacLean, who had planned most of Bruce’s battles and attacks for over twenty years, approached with his wife, Margaret. The couple had spent most of the early years of the war apart—with Margaret thinking Eoin dead—but had reunited in time to help Bruce take Dumfries Castle and vanquish his longtime enemy, Margaret’s father, Dugald MacDowell.

  The newest member of the Guard, Thom “Rock” MacGowan, whose ability to climb anything had helped Bruce take Edinburgh Castle by surprise just before Bannock Burn, came with his wife, Elizabeth, Douglas’s sister.

  Finally, the last two Guardsmen approached. He owed both of them so much. Joan “Ghost” Comyn, for all the information she’d passed over the years, and Alex “Dragon” Seton, for his part in Bannock Burn. If Alex hadn’t come back when he did, this day might never have come.

  Alex had proved his loyalty many times over the years and had become one of Bruce’s most trusted advisors. He’d been one of the signatories on the important “Declaration of Arbroath,” which had declared Scotland’s freedom in a letter to the pope eight years before, and just last year Bruce had named him governor of one of his most important castles—this castle, as a matter of fact.

  He could see the concern in both their faces as they approached. Joan bent down first to kiss his hand, and then when he indicated, to kiss him on the cheek. “Congratulations, sire. This has been a long day in coming.”

  He scrutinized her closely. There were remarkably few lines on her face for a woman who was in her mid-thirties. But she looked tired. “You have not been keeping yourself up too late, preparing for all this? I know it was a big undertaking that I asked of you.”

  It was not every day a lady was asked to host a royal wedding.

  She smiled. “We were honored, my lord. And truth be told it was not the wedding keeping me up the past few nights, it was Margaret.” They’d named their daughter after her cousin who’d helped her escape this very castle all those years ago. She was here, too. Margaret Comyn had married John Ross a year after Bannock Burn—she’d made the de Beaumonts see the benefit in having her be in Scotland rather than England to claim her part of Joan’s English inheritance. Joan shot Alex a look. “Her brothers were telling her ghost stories again. I wonder where they got them?”

  Alex’s expression was a tad too impassive. “I have no idea.”

  “You have to admit, it is fitting,” Bruce said, fighting his own smile.

  She scowled at him. “Then I’ll make sure to send her your way when she wakes up screeching like a banshee.”

  Bruce just laughed. “How many do you have again? Between you and the rest of the Guard, I have lost count of all the progeny.”

  Clearly, Joan didn’t believe him. “You know very well we have six. And I’ll wager you can name every one of them—and every one of the others, too.”

  “Well, that isn’t too hard. Half of them are named Robert,” Alex pointed out.

  “Or William,” Bruce added. The loss of William Gordon all those years ago had never been forgotten.

  Joan didn’t say anything, still staring at him. Finally, giving up—which is s
omething Bruce didn’t do often—he said, “Thomas, William, Alexander, John, Margaret, and . . .”

  “Robert,” Alex finished with a grin.

  “I hear from Boyd’s daughter that there will be a marriage to celebrate soon?”

  Joan rolled her eyes and shot Alex another look when he started coughing to hide his laughter.

  “What?” Alex said, sobering. “Don’t look at me, it’s not my fault.”

  “Aye, but you take far too much pleasure in it.”

  Apparently, Boyd’s very beautiful nine-year-old daughter had developed an infatuation with their ten-year-old son and was convinced that they were going to marry.

  Alex couldn’t resist taunting Boyd with jests about what would happen when they were older, and that he hoped his son had as much honor as they did.

  Alex thought it was hilarious; Boyd failed to see the humor. If Alex had ever wanted retribution for the ill-treatment Boyd had given him in the early years of their pairing, he had it.

  The seemingly ill-fated partnership between the hate-everything-English and the young knight from Yorkshire had ended up working out, after all. They were as close as—and sometimes fought like—brothers.

  Boyd had been instrumental in helping Alex regain his place in the Guard. Although it was Joan who’d helped him repair the damage that had been done with Lachlan. It happened right about the time they put their first son in his arms—the child they’d named after him: William Lachlan.

  Bruce looked down the table at Lachlan and his wife. “How is your mother? I know coming here was much to ask of her.”

  “She wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Joan said with sincerity that they could not question. “In truth, I don’t think coming back to Berwick bothered her as much as she expected. It was a long time ago.” She looked as if she were remembering something, too. “The ghosts of the past have faded with so many years of much happier memories.”

  He only wished he could say the same. “She deserves it.”

  As if sensing his maudlin thoughts, Joan asked, “Sire?”